Huntsman takes the long view

MANCHESTER, N.H. — More than 160 New Hampshire events and counting to his name, Jon Huntsman is hoping to pull off a political miracle Tuesday with the same shoe-leather campaign Rick Santorum ran with success in Iowa.

But there’s no evidence he can pull off a Santorum-like run at first place here — and Huntsman already is sounding like someone taking a longer view of his own presidential fortunes and the political party he’s always called home.

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In an interview Friday, the Utah governor turned China ambassador said bluntly that the GOP had lost its equilibrium in the Obama era but predicted it would eventually return to its bearings — and vindicate his own brand of pragmatism.

“I believe in the ideas put forward by Theodore White, the cycles of history,” Huntsman told POLITICO. “I believe we are in one such cycle. I think that cycle ultimately takes us to a sane Republican Party based on real ideas.”

Suggesting that the GOP currently is something other than sane isn’t the best way to win the support of Republican voters and may stir speculation that he’s preparing to launch a third-party bid. But Huntsman increasingly appears less focused on the political landscape of 2012 and more fixated on what his party will look like post-Obama — and what role he could have in it, come 2016.

Citing the cyclical theory of American political history — he’s confusing White for historian Arthur Schlesinger — Huntsman said the GOP’s transition away from its current moment of conservative purity may take years.

“[It’s] hard to know, but cycles never come about quickly, there’s an arc to them,” he said when asked when the Republican Party would shift. “But I suspect that what I’m talking about now and what I am putting forward as remedies for the economic deficit and for the trust deficit ultimately will be the core of our Republican Party — a governing majority.”

He adds: “It could be this time it could be two, three, four years from now — it’s hard to know.”

Such rhetoric could appeal to independents who have helped mavericks like John McCain and, in an earlier generation, Gary Hart, roar into contention in New Hampshire. But polling detects no such surge and Huntsman’s candid words and sober tone suggest a politician laying the foundation for an I-told-you-so argument after this year’s election.

For now, just days before the New Hampshire primary, Huntsman is as much like an NFL football team on the playoff bubble as he is a momentary victim of the inevitable tides of American politics, though.

Huntsman’s long-shot prospects this year depend on some elements out of his control — namely the success and failure of some of his rivals. So far, he hasn’t gotten much help. Mitt Romney came out of Iowa with a win and his New Hampshire poll numbers remain strong; Rick Perry didn’t drop out of the race and endorse Huntsman — the Texan stayed in and helped ensure South Carolina’s right would remain fractured; and with Perry still in, Rudy Giuliani has remained on the sidelines and not endorsed Huntsman.

Yet even if all the variables had turned in his favor, Huntsman’s chances would still be remote.

He talks, in a veiled shot at Romney, about the importance of having “a core.” Yet among his most severe impediments in this campaign has been his inability to settle on how exactly he wants to portray his own views.